


Finger On The Trigger

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2466494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May helps Skye practice her shooting at the range.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finger On The Trigger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perpetual_wallflower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetual_wallflower/gifts).



It’s not so different from what she’s used to.

Ever since she joined the team, back when they were a proper team on the Bus, she had been working up towards this- training herself to be a proper SHIELD agent back when SHIELD had been around and could actually be a goal she could aim for.

Training for that had become part of her routine and now that routine was continued again.

At the same time, it’s just different enough that she doesn’t feel a burning in the back of her throat or a feeling of more than mild disgust.

Having May as an SO has certainly been a change.

Most of the time it was a good change, as far as Skye was cornered.

Today they were working in the shooting range.

In Skye’s hand was a weapon that was far heavier than the ICERs that she was used to using.

It was incredibly solid and real, there was no denying that the weapon in her hand was one of killing not simply of immobilizing somebody.

She took a deep breath like she had been trained too and tried to slow her heart rate down to a reasonable level. Silently in her head she began to repeat like a mantra, _‘I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.’_

It worked for a moment, for a brief second she was able to keep her hands steady, to keep her emotions in check, but the moment didn’t last nearly as long as it should have.

When she’s able to speak up and find her words only thing she manages to get out is an admittance; “I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“I can’t do it,” she repeats regretting the words even as she has to say them again, but it’s the truth- and Skye may have been a good liar but she could not lie about this.

Her eyes lock on the printed out target at the end of the shooting range, before shaking her head and stepping back, lowering he weapon.

When May doesn’t say anything in reply, just remains standing there in stony almost unnerving silence Skye feels the need to continue, to explain herself, even though verbalizing the feeling that’s trapped down inside of her isn’t an easy thing to do.

“I’m not like him,” Skye says.

They both know who she was talking about without her even having to say the name.

“I can’t just shoot anybody,” she explains, then taking another look at the target, “or well- any _thing_.  I need a reason to shoot them, an explanation for what they’ve done wrong, otherwise I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

“This is practice,” May reminds her, with almost a hint of kindness.

Skye knows that this is practice, that knowing that should make the whole thing easier, but it doesn’t.

“As for a reason to shoot,” May continues,  “I’m your superior agent and I’m ordering you to shoot the target. That should be reason enough.”

Maybe that works for May.

Maybe that’s why she’s such a good agent.

But for Skye, the words ‘ _ordering you’_ had the exact opposite effect.

Still she has to try.

She raises her gun half-hearted stares down the barrel for a moment, before tugging it back down and stepping away, and saying, “yeah, no, can’t do it.”

When she brings the gun down it’s through think silence that is hanging over the air, and Skye cannot help but feel the disappointment that is surely radiating off May in waves.

She steadily refused to look at her SO and instead fidgets on her feet before replying, “look, orders are great and all, for people like you, but I was only a _real_ SHIELD agent for like a day,” a fact that Skye is reminded of with clarity as she fails to do even the most basic of her training assignments,  “I never went to your whole academy thing and I guess,” she takes a deep breath, “I need to know that this person I’m shooting, that they’re the bad guy.”

And then May has to ask, “Why,” not in a belittling tone, but one that might actually be honest curiosity.

She shifts her weight again before explaining, “because I don’t want to be the person who kills without thinking. I don’t want to find out later that the target was innocent, that they had a kid and family waiting for them back home, and that I’m the reason that somebody out there is-“ _like me_ , is how Skye wants to finish the sentence but she can’t she just shrugs. “Nevermind, just forget it. I’m hopeless.”

For a moment the only sound between them is that of May crossing over to the computer that runs the shooting range and then the sound of the machine wheeling the flimsy paper target over to her.

Skye’s smart enough to tell when the end of the lesson comes, and she sets the gun she had been training with down on the table with a heavy heart. She knew she was being difficult and that nobody else would have put up with her for so long, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t sting to relize that even the great _Melinda May_ was going to be giving up on her as well.

At least, that had been what Skye had assumed was going on until the target arrived, and May grabbed one of the sharpies that had been sitting on a table off to the side, one that was clearly labeled ‘P _roperty of Fitz’_ , and drew a shape that Skye couldn’t see onto the target.

“There,” May says when she was finished, tilting the target over for Skye to see, “I’m not an artist, so don’t comment on that.”

And it didn’t matter that her drawing wasn’t the best thing in the world, the symbol on the paper was a familiar one to her.

The dreaded octopus like thing that Hydra called their logo, now stood out in sharp contrast from the white of the target.

“Better?”

“It’s perfect,” Skye says, because really it is, it’s just what she needed.

“Now are you ready get some real practice in?”

“More than ready! Let’s kick some Hydra ass!”

She thinks for a second there she sees a hint of something on May’s face, amusement or approval or just something, but that can’t be right- because Melinda May doesn’t smile.

Right?

Especially not at _Skye_.

 


End file.
